Hot Topics:

Butter lovers rejoice: It may be better than margarine

By Joanna Blythman, The Guardian

Posted:
10/30/2013 12:10:12 AM EDT

Updated:
10/30/2013 01:40:38 PM EDT

Butter may not be so bad for you after all. Many doctors have concluded that saturated fat may not contribute to heart disease and may help you feel full longer. Plus, it s made with fewer ingredients than margarine. (Simon Battensby / Getty Images)

Government and health charities have been doling out duff healthy eating advice for decades, but when are they going to admit it? That's the question raised by the remarks of cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, who writing in the BMJ has challenged the orthodoxy that the consumption of foods containing saturated fat, such as butter and red meat, causes heart disease.

Malhotra is brave and principled to speak out, yet he is far from a lone voice. In 2010, a major review of scientific studies on fat, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that contrary to what we have been led to believe, "there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease." In the UK, other independent-minded nutritionists and medics, including John Briffa, Zoe Harcombe, and Malcolm Kendrick, have vociferously countered the biggest public health dogma of our times. It's the same story in the US, where influential voices, such as Garry Taubes, Michael Pollan and Robert Lustig, have all called time on the notion that saturated fat is the devil incarnate.

Why? Counter-intuitive though it might seem, there's no evidence that fat is fattening. Indeed, by sating the appetite effectively, it may prevent overeating. To quote Kendrick, "there is not one molecule of evidence to suggest that saturated fat consumption causes obesity." What's certain is that saturated fat is a key component of our cell membranes, and essential for the production of certain hormones.

Advertisement

It also acts as a carrier for important vitamins, and is vital for mineral absorption, and many other biological processes. So why has the public health establishment so assiduously encouraged us to shun it?

Viewed charitably, public health advice is just like any other socially constructed wisdom in that it gains authority through endless repetition. And who can blame GPs and other well-intentioned purveyors of health guidance up and down the land, if they recycle and disseminate uncritically tablets of nutritional wisdom dispensed from above?

Viewed cynically, however, it would be naive not to notice how the anti-sat-fat message has been used effectively by food manufacturers and processors to woo us away from whole, natural foods, such as butter, which is only minimally processed, on to their products, which are entirely the opposite, such as margarine.

For decades now, processed food companies have been using low-fat labels to give a halo of health to their industrially manufactured, nutritionally compromised, food constructions; everything from low-calorie yogurt and pizza, to breakfast cereals and ready meals. The motto has been, if you want to sell crap, make sure it's low-fat crap, because few people will look beyond the low-fat label to scrutinise the product's composition.

The fatwa on sat fat has been a fabulous boon for the sugar and cereals industries. It acts as a red herring, drawing our attention away from the much likelier cause of obesity: an overabundance of sugar and refined carbohydrates, which disrupt blood sugar and insulin levels, encouraging fat production and storage in the body. It has been bad news for livestock farmers, who produce dairy and meat, but they don't have the lobbying might of the carb and sugar corporations.

But it's hard to admit that we got it wrong. Reacting to Malhotra's remarks, health charities have defended their low-fat advice in the usual kneejerk manner, despite it becoming increasingly obvious that it's time for a paradigm shift.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Click the login link below to sign in with or to set up a Disqus account or to access your social networking account. When you do, your comment should be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (What are the guidelines?.) Report abuse by flagging a comment (mouse over the comment). Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Berkshire Eagle. So keep it civil.

NEW YORK (AP) — Viewers said farewell to Amy Poehler and the gang of Pawnee, Indiana, bureaucrats on NBC's "Parks and Recreation," in a finale that made more of a dent online than on television. Full Story